Dec 2, 2021

An Amazon Prime delivery van is seen after leaving a distribution center on July 14, 2019 in ... [+] Orlando, Florida. On July 15 and 16, 2019, Amazon holds its annual Amazon Prime Day, a 48-hour event during which Prime members can shop online for hundreds of thousands of specially discounted items. That’s an eye-popping number that shows the hold that Amazon now has over the American consumer. Much of that, Wiese and guest host Sabrina Tavernise explained, is due to just how easy it is to buy from Amazon, especially during the pandemic. One interesting stat they did not mention, however, is how much social video is now affecting purchase decisions on Amazon. Video product reviews are not new and many creators have built businesses around this format. The beauty of a video review is that the viewer can see the product in action, getting a feel for the way it looks and feels. They can see body language and other visual cues from the reviewer, and they can see close-ups of unique product features. More than all that though, for many consumers the ability to see and hear the reviewer gives the review more weight. Having someone they can relate to doing the reviewing makes their opinions seem more credible. Or so the theory went, because there has not been any consistent high-quality data to show the correlation between social video and sales on Amazon. Which is why a new feature from Tubular Audience Ratings that does just that—shows the correlation between social video viewing and purchase activity on Amazon—is somewhat revolutionary. MORE FOR YOU By leveraging global opt-in behavioral data panels and official measurement partnerships, San Francisco-based Tubular Labs , one of the key players in the social media measurement space, is attempting to highlight the correlation between public video viewership across key social platforms and viewers’ subsequent shopping behaviors, such as product browsing, in-cart activities, purchasing and posting reviews on Amazon. It’s the first measurement tool that attempts to quantify something brands and advertisers have been curious about for years: the journey from product evaluation via a review to actual purchase intent and post-purchase follow-up. “Social video has weaved its way into the cultural fabric of our society, but until now its impact on commerce was unconventional wisdom,” said Josh Schmiesing, chief marketing officer of Tubular Labs. “Now that the business and publisher communities can see unique reach, frequency and get conversion rates for ecommerce, brands can rethink how they invest in social video and unlock its potential.” One area where social video reviews are particularly influential is electronics. A full 25% of consumer sales on Amazon come from social video audiences that have watched videos about that category, according to Tubular Labs. This translates to close to $24 billion of influenced sales for the electronics category, just from viewership of product reviews or related content. “There are clear lines between the types of content audiences are watching and how that influences their shopping behaviors,” said Schmiesing. “Our new capabilities demonstrate the impact of social video for brands as a sales-oriented solution, showcasing how marketers need to invest further in these platforms while evaluating ad budgets.” The key question however is how brands will use this data. Sharing authentic videos that put the brand in a good light is a smart use of the medium. Paying to promote videos that the brand itself has created, however, will likely backfire. Consumers turn to these types of reviews specifically because they feel authentic. It’s clear that no one has paid off the reviewer and that the opinions they are offering are real. (If they weren’t, no one would watch the videos. )  Successful creator videos are not without their lessons, however. If a brand discovers that humorous creator reviews drive twice as many Amazon sales as serious ones, then that’s a likely cue to begin injecting humor into their traditional ad campaigns. And not all product-related social video is as potentially risky as a review. Brands can engage influencers to create educational-style videos explaining the value of a product category and key things to look for. Or they can highlight trends in a particular product category. Authenticity is key here and brands should be extremely careful not to create a sense that they are placing a finger, let alone an entire ham-fist on the scale. Clicking back a screen, advertising in general, and TV advertising in particular, has often been accused of being removed from the sales cycle. Brands find it difficult to see a direct correlation between their TV commercials and sales: they know that sales go up when they run more ads and that different platforms are better at driving sales than others, but struggle to understand what it was about the ad that drove those sales. With Tubular’s new metric, understanding that loop becomes much, much easier, as brands can now see the link between video watching and consumer behavior on Amazon. While it’s not a one-to-one match, it is an excellent illustration of how consumers use video to gather information about brands and how certain aspects of a video can eventually affect their purchase decisions. Data can never truly ascertain the many random and completely subjective reasons consumers ultimately make a purchase. But it can help frame the type of content they watch to help them ultimately make those decisions. Which is why Tubular Labs’ new product seems likely to be a much-welcomed addition to the advertisers’ arsenal. Follow me on  Twitter  or  LinkedIn . Check out my  website  or some of my other work  here .